


oh, the weather outside is frightful!

by intergaylactic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (not completely but the first chapter has it), Avenger Reader (Marvel), Bickering, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hypothermia, Injury, Missions Gone Wrong, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sickfic, and also sexual tension !!, but just a lil bit - Freeform, cozy tension !!, fun little fic that gets cozy !!!, just having a good time !!, what happens at the safehouse stays at the safehouse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:13:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intergaylactic/pseuds/intergaylactic
Summary: “Use all the blankets and then - Jesus, you’re gonna hate this -”“If you say cuddle for warmth -”bucky barnes is a condescending, infuriating ass. your mission has gone terribly wrong. there's no way this could get any worse. right?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) & Reader
Comments: 25
Kudos: 136





	1. but our fire is so delightful

You planted your heavy boots firmly in the shifting snow, peering into the distance with one gloved hand shielding your face as best as it could. The winds were beginning to pick up, and the cold air bit at the already-raw skin of your face as you studied your surroundings in search of the surveillance pod Agent Hill had assured you was out there. 

Just a few feet away, Barnes was doing the same thing, his eyes icy blue in the harsh grey sunlight reflecting off the snow. 

“I can’t see anything,” you sighed, dropping your hand to consult the screen of your secure device, the coordinates for the pod already entered. It should have been hardly ten feet away, right where the two of you were standing. 

“Did you put the coordinates in right?” Barnes asked, his voice flat. 

Your eyes narrowed into a glare as you glanced up at him, feeling a surge of warm frustration rise up against the cold seeping through your body. “ _ Yes _ , I typed in the coordinates correctly.” 

Barnes’ hands went up defensively, though you knew he was more annoyed at your response than he was reluctant to start a fight. He liked to do that, play innocent in the beginning of an argument to make you feel ridiculous for snapping at him. It was despicable. “Alright, alright, I’m sure you typed them in right. Then where’s the pod?”

“I don’t know,” you said through gritted teeth, the cold and Barnes’ presence combining to make your afternoon somehow worse than it already was with the revelation that there might be another HYDRA cell up and running. You needed to calm down and focus on the mission at hand, but something about the situation was catching you off-guard, ticking you off more than usual. 

It had been a bad idea to send the two of you on this mission, although you could see what Steve was thinking - sort of. You and Barnes had “gotten off on the wrong foot”, as Steve liked to say in that diplomatic way of his, and had never bothered to course correct in your relationship, much to the Captain’s chagrin. You were professional (mostly) and civil at public events (usually), but in private, at the compound? You tried not to be in the same room, to spare your teammates the hassle of listening to you argue and breaking apart your fights. There was something about Barnes that rubbed you the wrong way, that got under your skin and made you feel the need to prove yourself, because he couldn’t stop treating you like an incompetent child. So what if he had seventy years of field experience on you? You weren’t an invalid, and you could certainly type coordinates into a GPS without his supervision. 

“Well then,” Barnes continued, frowning at you, “there must be something wrong.”

“I typed in the -”

“I know you typed them in, but have you bothered to double check that -”

“I can type goddamn  _ coordinates  _ into a GPS without -”

“I’m just saying that if you  _ did  _ type them in, we should be able to find the -”

“You know what? You type them in! You take a look, with all your wonderful tech prowess, and figure out my big mistake and fix it for me like you so  _ desperately  _ want to!” With that, you shoved the GPS directly into Barnes’ chest, letting him snatch it from your grip before stomping off through the fluffy, shallow banks of snow, peering around as though maybe the surveillance pod would appear via magic summoning. Admittedly, finding it while Barnes fiddled with the stupid GPS would be a heavenly way to wrap up this mission. 

You brushed stray hairs out of your eyes as you kept searching, the wind whipping it into your face as it tore past you, chilling you to the bone with each sweeping gust. It seemed to be picking up more and more, and a whisper of concern flitted across your mind as you surveyed the skies, heavy with deep gray clouds. The snow at your feet was beginning to blow in powdery puffs, and you glanced over your shoulder at Barnes, whose eyes were still trained on the mechanism in his gloved hands. 

“Any luck?” You asked, not bothering to hide the smugness in your voice. 

He looked up at you with narrowed eyes, muttering a curse before readjusting something on the GPS twice and then swearing, shoving it into his pocket and marching to catch up with you. “Not a fucking word,” he said flatly, staring straight ahead as you both fell into a steady rhythm walking through the wind and snow, searching for the pod. 

“No problem,  _ Sergeant, _ ” you quipped, enjoying the way his gaze dipped to the side in annoyance at the nickname. It was one of your favourite ways to set him off, though you kept it in reserve to avoid wearing it out; there weren’t many ways to fluster  _ and _ annoy Bucky Barnes at the same time, and you intended to preserve yours for as long as you could manage. 

“Just keep walking,” he muttered. “It has to be around here somewhere.” 

The two of you settled into a tense silence as you concentrated on searching for signs of the surveillance pod. Barnes was right, the thing had to be around here somewhere. Fury and Hill had sworn it was both still here and still operational, if a little under the weather. And getting it up and working was going to be important for the recon operations the team would have to conduct before attempting any raids of HYDRA cells. The last one you brought down had been too crafty for anyone’s liking, and it was decided that recon was the highest priority to deal with the cell that you believed had popped up in Austria, just north of your current location. 

Half an hour of searching later, and the two of you still hadn’t come up with anything. The wind was starting to really pick up at that point, whipping around the two of you hard enough to force you to squint to see anything. Snow flew around you in dizzying swirls of white, and you were having difficulty combing through the banks on the ground from how cold you were. 

“Barnes, I think we should -” Your shout died on your lips as you turned to find Barnes vanished, swallowed up by the sheets of ice and cold. You spun around, raising both hands to shield your face as you studied your surroundings. “Barnes?! Barnes, where the hell are you?!”

You stopped when you spotted movement: a small figure in the distance, bundled up in all-black, one arm waving at you. You let out a tiny sigh, relieved to at least have found him; you didn’t like the idea of heading back to base and trying to explain that you’d lost this pain in your ass somewhere in the Hohe Tauern. 

Thinking of Steve’s relief upon discovering that you  _ didn’t  _ leave Barnes to freeze to death in the Eastern Alps (“It’s progress!” he would say. “I’ll take it!”), you trudged towards the figure, your steps sluggish in the heavy snowfall. The storm really had crept up on the two of you, swarming you in frigid ice before you had even realized what was happening. If only you’d found that surveillance pod . . .

You were barely teen feet from the figure when you realized it wasn’t Barnes. 

The snow clouded your vision, but you could tell from the silhouette; this close, you could just make out the narrower shoulders, the lankier body, the red patch on the jacket - 

Wait. The red patch on the jacket. 

“Oh fuck,” you breathed as the HYDRA operative levelled the gun at your head. 

“Now,” he said, his voice thick with an accent - Portuguese, maybe? Greek? - “why don’t you come and we’ll find your partner together.” It was not a question. 

There were three of them, which sent a new jolt of panic through you when you saw the other two HYDRA agents emerge from the distance, sitting astride two snowmobiles. Clearly, the one with a glock aimed at your skull had piggybacked with one of these ones, which was an image nearly funny enough to make you laugh in spite of everything - nearly. 

“We didn’t think you would be stupid enough to bring the Soldat right to us, but I suppose that saves us the hassle of coming to you.” He laughed out the words, the Russian sounding uncomfortable on his tongue. You wondered if it was another show of deference to HYDRA, and to the mother language of their former base of operations. He didn’t seem amused by your slow shuffle, and shoved you along in front of him as you moved through the snow, the two men carving a path ahead of you in their vehicles. God, as much as being kidnapped was not high on your to-do list, you wished you could at least get a ride to the place you’d be held hostage, even with the complaints coming from both agents of having to stop and fix them from breaking down. You’d take a broken ride over no ride through a blizzard. 

The storm was almost too thick to see through now, and the agents’ remarks were muffled by the wind, even as he spoke right next to your ear. You struggled to hear him, and struggled to spot Barnes amid the blank void of the mountainside. As adamant as Shuri and Steve and Nat all were that the trigger words had been safely removed from Barnes’ head, you still wanted him as far from these HYDRA agents as possible. You had no idea how he would react to anything they had to say, and a wild card was the last thing either of you needed right now. 

“He’s around here,” the agent shouted into your ear, and you flinched away from the sudden heat of his breath; he yanked you back towards him, the cold of the gun’s barrel hardly registering on the frigid skin of your cheek. “He has to come rescue you eventually!”

“Sorry,” you replied, swallowing a bitter laugh, “but if you wanted Barnes to come rescue anyone, you should’ve picked somebody he’d want to save!”

The agent turned to glare at you, something you could only make out because he was far too close for comfort, before you saw a flicker of recognition in his round, dark eyes. They glimmered as they stared right over your head, and you hoped that the delight in them was the arrival of a third snowmobile and not -

“Soldat!” He barked it out, and another wave of hot breath rushed over your face; you winced, but kept from struggling away. “It’s been a long time!”

A muffled yell, half-eaten by the raging winds, and then another shout, closer and clearer than before. “Have we met?!”

You glanced out of the corner of your eye, and huffed out a sigh; you could have smacked him, he was being so stupid. Standing hardly six feet from you, gun raised and aimed at the agent, was Bucky Barnes. The bulk of him stood strong against the storm, and he glared down the man holding you by the collar of your jacket. You felt like a scolded child, in need of rescuing from a neighbourhood bully, and the thought sent a spike of shame through your gut; at least the sensation was warm. 

“Unfortunately, no,” your captor continued, “but I think we’ll have time for introductions once we’ve gotten the pair of you where you belong.” He punctuated this sentence with a disdainful glance at you, and you stiffened. That was a look you knew well: the realization of disposability. You were no longer a hostage if they had Bucky; you were dead weight, to be jettisoned once the Winter Soldier was back in their possession. You could feel the weight of the knife strapped to your hip, underneath the padding of your coat - would that take too long? It had seemed like too much of a risk as you moved alone with him through the storm, but with this fate awaiting you almost inevitably, and the agent a little distracted by Bucky, maybe you had a chance. 

Then Barnes shot your idea straight to hell the same moment he shot at the agent. 

The bullet missed as the agent dropped to the ground, his reflexes lightning fast; he must’ve seen the shot coming, the tension in Barnes’ right arm. You winced when your face hit the fresh snow, freezing to the point of burning, and rolled over onto your back. The agent’s hand no longer on your collar, his grip lost somewhere in the ice, you reached into your coat, yanking at the knife. The strap came loose, the knife came free, and you unsheathed it with a rush of relief - just as a foot struck you square in the side, sending you tipping over and back onto your front, another faceful of snow scalding your skin with cold. You coughed, your ribs burning, your grip tightening on the blade’s handle. 

You clambered to your feet, awkward in your padded gear, as Barnes and the agent went sprawling; both guns seemed to have disappeared into the endless white. You kicked at the back of the agent’s head, knocking him into the snow, as a hand snatched the back of your jacket and yanked you onto your back, knocking the wind out of you. 

The second HYDRA operative stood behind you, his snowmobile abandoned a few feet away. He struck at your face, and you rolled to avoid him, wiping away more snow from your eyes as you stood, knife already slicing through the air. He parried - with what you didn’t see, the world still water-logged from the ice sticking to your eyelids - and you didn’t stop slashing until you felt the knife sink home into something soft. You scrubbed at your eyes with the cuff of your jacket sleeve and found it stuck in the agent’s thigh, his hands coming to clamp down on the wound. You shoved him to the ground, watching the red spill out, painfully vivid against the snow. You wobbled on your feet for a moment, everything tilting wildly as your ears rung, righting yourself just as the third agent came barrelling at you. You ducked, letting him bypass you, and stopped yourself just before tipping into Barnes and the first agent, who were still brawling. You could see the red on Barnes’ face from this close. 

Eventually, when you had to write the mission report, you wouldn’t know how to describe what happened, relying on Bucky to fill in the gaps. Forget slowing down - time seemed to speed up, events and movements and faces whipping past you like an express train, too fast for you to get a good look, feeling ruffled and startled by its sudden burst of action. You remembered the third agent turning back to you, clambering onto one of the vehicles; the rev of the engine; the burst of illumination, headlights bearing down on you. You remembered the rising silhouette of the first agent, missing gun once more in hand, aiming directly at Barnes. You remembered throwing yourself out of the way, the third agent and vehicle jetting across the snowy landscape too fast to stop, ploughing directly into the ever-present wall of white. You remembered the blast, so small compared to the wind roaring in your ears, the ringing that sung through your whole body as you tried to shake your head clear. 

Then, everything was just a blur of your legs moving, your hands on shoulders, the crunch of snow under your cheek, and the wall of white slowly reaching down to swallow you whole. 

* * *

You awoke to the unsteady sound of laboured breathing. 

You blinked, squinting up into the hazy light, at the figure blocking out the sun. You tried to groan, or ask where you were, but found your throat too thick with cold to speak. Your muscles seized under your attempts, and you let out a quiet keen at the aching cold throbbing through your body, the stiffness locking you in place. 

Suddenly, the jostling around you stopped, and only in its absence did you realize it had been there. You made the same sound, trying to remember where you were, why it was light but definitely not day, why everything in you was so damn  _ cold  _ but also bordering on weightless, numb to the point of nonexistence -

“Y/N?” You tried to blink, and managed it after a few tries. The movement began again in earnest, and you would have complained with the way it jolted through your aching limbs, but your tongue was too heavy to be of any use. “Y/N, can you hear me? I swear to God if you’re giving me the silent treatment  _ right now  _ . . . “

Everything drifted into the welcoming blankness of the snow, and you let the sounds and shapes of your surroundings echo around you, patternless and indiscernible. 

* * *

The next time your eyes opened, you were met with a view of Bucky Barnes’ bare stomach, muscles tight with tension as he yanked his shirt over his head, dropping it onto the floor. 

You let out a startled cough, flinching hardly an inch backwards before you felt the sudden throb of pain that moved through your skeleton like electricity. You groaned, grateful to find your voice marginally more functional, though you were still stiff and heavy with that aching, tight numbness. 

“Shit -” Barnes was dropping to his knees then, icy eyes studying your face as you tried to school your expression into something dignified. “Y/N? Can you hear me?” 

You gave a tiny nod, the muscles in your neck straining, and felt a weight drape over your body; you glanced at the rest of you, laid out on your back on an unfamiliar floor. Blankets seemed to be piled onto you, though you could still feel the weight of your gear. Your skull was pounding with a horrendous headache.

“Can you move? Stand, maybe?” Barnes was watching you with a furrowed brow, and you could feel the frustration and disappointment coming off of him in waves; it made you want to curl away from him, lick your wounds in private. You didn’t need him looking at you like that while you sorted yourself out. But you didn’t turn away, exhaustion and cold holding you in place. 

“S- sort of,” you said, your voice coming out as a croak. “I can try to -”

“Here -”

“I’ve got it,” you snapped, moving to push yourself up, your arms awkward and unstable with the action, quaking under the weight of your stiff body. When you started to falter, Barnes’ hands were holding you up by the shoulders, no matter your furious glare. He met it with an irritated stare of his own. 

“We don’t have time for your ego, Y/L/N,” Barnes said, tugging you up into a sitting position and pulling the blankets off of you in one sweep. “I did what I could when we got here, but you’re gonna need to get out of those clothes if you want to keep all your fingers and toes.” 

“Get - g-get out of my  _ clothes _ ?” You repeated, face pinching into an uncomfortable scowl. “God, no!” 

“D’you want to die of hypothermia with no one but me for company?” Barnes asked, one eyebrow cocked. A challenge, one he knew you’d rise to. 

“I guess th-that would b-be fucking awful,” you said, because goddamn if you weren’t going to get the last word in. Before you could say anything, Barnes’ hands were slipping from your shoulders down the arms of your jacket and clasping your hands, bare; your gloves seemed to have vanished at some point. His palms were warm against yours, though the heat felt distant. You noticed the twist of his frown when he touched your bare skin, and tried not to feel slighted. If after all this, your hands happened to end up a bit clammy and gross, he could very well keep that to himself. 

Barnes hauled you to your feet, and dropped your hands immediately. You swayed slightly, but parted your feet to keep steady. You jerked your chin at the space next to him, irritated. “You can turn around now.”

“And miss the show?” Barnes asked dryly, though he turned on his heel and faced the opposite wall in the same breath. “I do mean everything, Y/L/N. Anything wet is gonna keep you from getting warm.” 

You scowled, already shucking off your heavy jacket and scarf, your hat having disappeared, too. Maybe before you’d even gotten to wherever Barnes had taken the two of you. You glanced around at the dusty, timeworn room you stood in, dark wood panelling, iron-grate fireplace and near-cramped space giving it a cottage-esque feel. But there was a large, dark screen built into the far wall, and the SHIELD logo was stamped across a door leading off into the rest of the building. 

“Where exactly are we?” You asked, peeling off your soaked outershirt, your thermal pants following them in a heap on the wooden floor. There was already a puddle where snow had melted off your hair and jacket where you lay a few minutes earlier. 

“Safehouse,” Barnes said. “About three miles from the spot we were ambushed. Bit of a pain to get to in a blizzard, but that snowmobile got us about one before it broke down.”

“You’d think HYDRA would have brought better equipment to come capture the Winter Soldier,” you muttered, fingering the hem of your undershirt. The air was unpleasant and tingling on the bare skin of your arms and throat, and the idea of finally removing this and your thermal underwear wasn’t something you were keen on. 

In front of you, Barnes stiffened slightly, and you winced; the Winter Soldier was usually one of the few parts of him off-limits to your criticism. Bucky Barnes was condescending and presumptuous and irritating and nearly always right, and that was enough material for you to work with; what he’d done under duress and decades of brain-washing felt too personal for you to touch, nor was it something you genuinely understood. He and Steve kept so much of it under lock and key and furtive, disquieted glances that you had never wanted to pry at that can of worms. 

Then he snorted, though the sound was more derisive than amused. “HYDRA’s run by a bunch of idiots - that hasn’t changed. You undressed? Can I turn around now?”

“No!” You said quickly, your grip on the undershirt tightening in surprise; your exclamation came out half-squeak and half-scratchy croak. 

“Get a move on, then,” Barnes said, and you could hear his eyes roll, no line of sight needed. 

You winced, peeling off your undershirt and leggings, leaving yourself in just a bra and underwear. You spread your stance a little more, trying to steady yourself, so you could reach down and snatch a dry blanket off the floor, wrapping it around yourself. 

“I’m decent.” 

Barnes whirled around, and you glared at him openly as he looked you over. “Take a picture, Barnes, it’ll last longer,” you snapped. 

He just sighed through his nose, stepping forward and resting his palm against your forehead; you flinched, but he just frowned. Your teeth chattering and the shuffle of your bare feet on the floor as you shivered were the only sounds in the room for a long moment. Then Barnes sighed again, and god, when would he stop looking so  _ disappointed  _ in you? 

“I’m gonna get the fire going a bit better,” he said, and you froze as his hand dipped from your forehead to graze along your shoulder, barely touching the patch of bare skin peeking out from behind the blanket. “Use all the blankets and then - Jesus, you’re gonna hate this -”

“If you say  _ cuddle for warmth  _ -” You began, and Barnes’ mouth flattened to a thin, irritated line. 

“Body heat will prevent you from dying of hypothermia,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument - though you were sure to make one regardless. “Trust me, I’d rather not be doing this, either.” 

You rolled your eyes as he handed you the other two dusty blankets, taking them to the lumpy couch and dropping into it, burrowing yourself into their warmth. As if you were an invalid. As if you wanted his help. As if you wanted him to press his whole, half-naked body right next to yours, only the blankets separating - 

“You don’t have any more knives hidden on you, do you?” Barnes stood next to the couch, towering over you; the fire crackled merrily in the grate behind him. You knew it would take time for the warmth to fully reach you, but the shivering throughout your every atom was becoming unbearable. 

You looked up at Barnes, eyes travelling over the bare skin revealed by his missing shirt and the boxers he wore, all of his clothes laid out to dry on the floor in front of the fireplace. You shuffled further into your blanket cocoon, avoiding his gaze. 

“Just don’t br-breathe a w-word of this to anyone,” you muttered, hating the stumbling of your words, “and we w-won’t have a problem.” 

“Then there’s no problem, princess,” Barnes said, dropping onto the couch cushions next to you and carefully draping one arm along the back of the couch, along your shoulders. “I’ll take it to my grave.” 

Barnes  _ was  _ warm, and you couldn’t help but be relieved by the heat radiating off of him, even through the blanket. He probably ran hot because of the serum - Steve was like that, too, you’d noticed - and the thought that he wasn’t affected by the storm and the cold made you more disgruntled than was probably reasonable. But you let his arm drop across your shoulders, touching you directly, and leeched the warmth from him as best you could. He just looked straight ahead, gaze distant and thoughtful, as you slowly stopped shivering. In ten minutes, the only noise in the safehouse was the crackle of the fire and the gentle rhythm of your mingled breathing. 

Your eyelids began to droop slowly, and you blinked against it. But then you felt a hand on your thigh, and your gaze flicked up to meet Barnes’ intent blue eyes. He just gave you a small shake of the head, his mouth quirked into a small half-frown. 

“Go ahead and sleep,” he said, his voice hushed in the quiet of the room; he sounded pretty tired himself. “You’ll need to rest.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you murmured, no bite to your voice, as you let your head tip forward. You were out before you could hear Barnes’ laugh, drifting into the pleasant space of softness and warmth you were curled up in.

When you came to again, blinking away the sleep crusted along your eyelids, you were alone. The old couch felt much bigger than before, the space next to you where Barnes had sat growing cold from his newfound absence. You tugged one arm free of your blanket cocoon, scrubbing at your face, and peered around. The room was dark, and the howling wind hadn’t let up while you napped; neither had the snow, it seemed, as it blocked out any light that might have filtered through the window. You shivered in the chill, alone and confused in the dark. 

A sudden bang echoed through the safehouse as the door at the far side of the room burst open, and in tumbled Barnes, slamming it closed behind him. He was covered in snow again, and he spent a long few moments wiping furiously at the flakes on his face and in his hair before you spoke. 

“Where the hell were you?”

His head snapped to you and he raised one eyebrow, gaze travelling along your blanketed form. He continued to shuck off his gear again, eventually getting down to only his thermal pants. “Went to check on the generator, see if I could get it going.”

“And?” You asked, eyebrows raising expectantly. 

“And nothing,” Barnes said with a half-shrug. “Generator’s busted.” 

You swore, clutching your blankets closer to you almost instinctively as Barnes padded across the room to drop heavily onto the couch, though he left a few inches of space between the two of you. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, though the hunched set of his shoulders revealed his frustration; he was tired, clearly, and you watched him sigh and run a palm across his face, as if trying to smooth out the irritation. It didn’t work. 

“I don’t - no generator means no power,” you said slowly, your sleep-addled brain moving through the pieces of your situation, trying to stitch them together in a way that didn’t leave you feeling sick to your stomach. “And no power means no contacting the team, and no contacting the team means we’re just . . . out here.” You glanced up at the window again, the wild storm raging away just outside the glass. The room was already getting colder, it seemed, and you curled in on yourself just a little more. 

“Yeah, but it isn’t that -”

“We don’t have any heating,” you continued, your voice cracking from the panic rising in your chest, “and we don’t have any way of getting out of here, and -”

“- and we’re going to be  _ fine _ .” Barnes cut you off, his voice firm, one hand coming up to grip your shoulder through the thin blanket. The heat of his palm drew you from your chill, and you turned to look at him, a flush rising furiously to your cheeks as you met his gaze. You hiccuped, trying to hold back a gasp of air, trying to reassemble your controlled, reasonable exterior. If Barnes saw you panic right now, he would never let you live it down. 

But it was too much: the encroaching cold, seeping deep into your marrow, ridding you of any chance to be warm, and the isolation. It was just the two of you, trapped in the least safe safehouse you could have found. Your chest tightened at the sound of the storm, the memory of the walls of white battering you from every angle too fresh in your mind to be ignored. 

“Hey, Y/L/N - Y/N, don’t -” Barnes’ other hand came up to your other side, and he held you across from him, pinning your arms to your sides, forcing you to look him right in the eye. “Y/N, you need to  _ calm down _ , alright? This is a safehouse, it’s safe here, that’s the whole point, alright? We’re gonna be fine, you just need to calm down.” 

“I don’t -” you coughed against another gasp, trying to hold your breath, your throat already raw from the cold and sleep and shouting through the deafening sound of the storm. “I . . .  _ fuck _ , I’m fine, I’m not . . .” You pulled away from his grip, retreating into the embrace of the lumpy couch cushions, eyes sliding to the floor to avoid looking at him as he watched you try and stave off an anxiety attack. You let out a long breath, releasing the tension in your shoulders as you did so, waiting for your heartbeat to even back out. 

When it finally did, you chanced a glimpse of Barnes, only to find him already watching you. There was no weight to his gaze, so unlike the way you could always feel his eyes on you, could sense the judgement or annoyance in his face before you even turned to meet his glare. Now though, his eyes had turned to something softer, the lines of his face drawn in earnest concern as he ran a hand along your forearm. The movement startled you, and you moved back an inch without thinking, Barnes’ hand frozen in the place where your arm had been. 

It seemed that your flinch had tugged him from the clutches of whatever trance he was in, because Barnes’ expression hardened and he drew his hand back to his side, shaking his head. “Just,” he began, paused, and began again, his voice distant, “just remember to keep your shit together, alright? I don’t want to be out here if you’re going to get cabin fever this quick.” 

You turned your face away, leaning into the cushions and closed your eyes, hiding from the embarrassment of the exchange. Barnes hadn’t moved away, and you could still feel the weight of him next to you on the couch, his thigh just barely brushing the side of yours as you both tried to settle in on the couch, too tired and nervous to move anywhere else in the safehouse until daylight. You fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breathing. 

* * *

Waking up and feeling like you’d been hit by a freight train was an unpleasant and, in your opinion, unnecessary surprise. But you supposed that the universe wasn’t done piling bad luck onto both you and this mission. 

“Ugh,” you groaned, running a hand through your hair. Your head was pounding, and your mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. You tried to sit up, but the sudden wave of dizziness that washed over you had you collapsing back against the couch cushions with another, weaker groan. “What . . .?”

There was an amused snort somewhere above you, and you carefully peeked open your eyes to see Barnes hovering over your prone form, knowing half-smile already on his face. You wanted to smack it off. 

“Welcome to the consequences of getting crushed in a small avalanche,” he said by way of greeting. “D’you feel worse than you look?”

“Shut up,” you grumbled, pulling the blankets up higher to nestle into, shielding your face from his smug gaze. Asshole. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”

But you weren’t fine in a minute, nor were you fine in two minutes, ten minutes, or thirty. You stayed hidden in your blanket nest on the couch, your headache worsening with each passing minute, and your throat aching from coughing and all the wear and tear of the past twenty four hours. You just burrowed further and further into the couch, as if you could warm your way to wellness. The frigid temperature of the safehouse, generator still busted, wasn’t much incentive for you to come out. 

Barnes kept moving, sorting through the available supplies. Given that it was an old SHIELD hideout, the place was decently stocked; certainly not prepared for visitors, but there was enough canned food and batteries and flashlights to keep you supplied for a few days - though the idea of staying trapped in this safehouse for longer than a few hours was enough to nearly send you spiralling into another anxiety attack. 

Eventually, Barnes came wandering back over to the couch, peeling back your layer of blankets to level with you with a reproachful stare. “There’s a decent med kit here, you know. You could use some of what’s in there.”

“I’m fine,” you lied, yanking back the blanket. “I can handle myself, thanks.”

“You’ve been muttering about your headache for the past ten minutes,” Barnes shot back. “You taking an aspirin is for my benefit more than yours, believe me.” 

“Right, I forgot things always have to be about  _ you  _ and how  _ you  _ would do them,” you replied, rolling your eyes. “Barnes knows what he’s doing, he knows more than everybody in the room -”

“I wouldn’t have to boss you around if you just took care of yourself like a normal person,” he argued, standing up. Now he was towering over you, looking down at you exactly like he always did. Fantastic. 

“Don’t pull rank on me,  _ Sarge _ ,” you quipped, shrinking from his gaze, though you did notice the flush in his cheeks at the nickname. 

“Just take the damn aspirin,” he said, barely holding back his glare. 

“Fine!” You shot back, the venom in your voice overpowered by the way the word scratched and stung in your throat. You moved to stand, but nearly toppled back onto the couch with the wave of dizziness that overtook you; instead, you slammed your hands out, half-stopping your descent. Barnes just quirked one challenging eyebrow, and you let out a long, belligerent sigh. 

“Whatever.” you muttered. “Just - whatever.” 

And that was how you found yourself burrowed in your blanket nest with Bucky Barnes rummaging through a med kit on the couch next to you, strands of long chestnut hair falling in his eyes as he searched for the needed supplies. 

“Okay - we got aspirin, something for cold and flu - don’t know how helpful that’ll be, since we don’t know if that’s even what’s wrong with you - and some . . . hot and cold compresses.” Barnes spread his treasure out on the lump couch cushion, then flicked his gaze back up to you, as if sizing you up. “I dunno if maybe the dizziness is coming from a concussion, so aspirin might not actually be a good idea - pretty sure that stuff is recommended  _ against _ . . . Maybe take two tylenol and see how it does?”

“I know how to take tylenol,” you said, scowling. “Just give it to me.” 

Barnes handed you the bottle of tylenol willingly enough, and a smirk twisted across his mouth as he watched you struggle with it, your grip a little weaker than usual. “Need any help over there?” God he was unbearable. 

“Just - nearly got it -” you huffed, your palm slipping on the lid again. “Christ, did they vacuum seal this thing?” 

“I think . . .” Barnes took the package from your hands, and you gave little resistance as you watched him pop it open, looking very pleased with himself, “. . . you have to press and  _ then  _ twist it.” 

“I knew that.” 

“I mean, it  _ is  _ child-proof, so -” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” 

Barnes grabbed some water from the pantry that was stocked with ration supplies, and you gulped down the two tablets, avoiding his eyes. He reached out a hand, and you held perfectly still, confusion ringing through you, as he pressed his palm to your forehead. His hand was warm and dry, and you almost wanted to close your eyes and let yourself pretend it belonged to someone else so you could sink into the touch. You were sick, damn it, and you wanted a bit of good, old-fashioned healing comfort. 

Instead, you watched Barnes frown slightly, his brow puckering as he lifted his hand. 

“You do feel a bit warm . . . but that might just be because of how damn cold the rest of this place is,” he added ruefully, glancing around the safehouse common room as if the cold were a visible thing. 

“I don’t think hypothermia can give you the flu, so I doubt I have a fever, Barnes,” you retorted, shrinking back from him now that he was distracted. The sudden influx of contact with Bucky Barnes was starting to unsettle you, especially given how little you seemed to hate all of it. You didn’t want to grow used to him touching you, or patronizing you. 

“Hopefully not, since I’d still like to finish this mission when we get things back up and running.” 

“ _ I  _ would also like to finish the mission, as well,” you said, and caught the slight twitch in his jaw as he looked back at you, the imperceptible frustration that flared in his eyes. 

“Yes, Y/N, we would all like to finish the mission,” he said, as if validating a child. “Now, sleep a bit while I go figure out the generator again, see if I can get it to work now.” 

And with that, and a quick pat on your knee, he was stretching and slipping on his jacket again, marching out the door of the safehouse and into the white void outside. You swore, irritation rising in you like the fever Barnes thought you had, like the invalid he thought you were. Like you were some kind of liability on every mission you went on. 

You drifted off with that irritation still growing in your chest, a steady warmth of anger to keep the chill of the empty safehouse at bay. 

* * *

Barnes had insisted on you staying curled up in those blankets all day, and the lack of productivity was starting to drive you out of your mind. You dozed for an hour at most before you were awake again, your throat still aching and your body still weak, though the tylenol seemed to have helped your pounding headache a fair bit. 

“Try taking one of these for your throat,” Barnes said, handing you a packet of heavy-duty cough drops from the med kit after thoroughly reading the back, as if you couldn’t read the instructions on a pack of cough drops. They dropped in your lap with a gentle crinkle, and you carefully tore it open and unwrapped one. It was supposed to be cherry; it tasted foul. 

“Thanks,” you said, face scrunched up from the flavour. 

Barnes laughed quietly, closing the kit again. “Anytime,” he said, standing up to go busy himself with something else, because that was what you were on this mission now: a task to complete every once in a while. You muttered a curse when he ruffled your hair as he walked away, clearly enjoying getting such a rise out of you while you posed no threat to him. 

(Because when you weren’t sick, you definitely posed a real threat to the Winter Soldier, no doubt about it.) 

When Barnes swept away, back into the cold and around to the back of the safehouse to look for more stored wood for the fire, you made your escape. You needed to get up and do something, and maybe fixing the generator would make you feel less useless, and convince Barnes that you weren’t a liability but an asset. 

You untangled yourself from the blankets nestled around you, shrinking back at the sudden wave of cold that struck you; but you bit your lip and steeled your nerves and stood anyway, quickly redressing on wobbly legs. You’d be fine once you got moving a bit, you were sure - you just needed to get your momentum started. Tugging on your jacket and pulling a hat down over your ears, you headed to the door, stepping into your heavy boots. There was a small maintenance kit that you’d snagged from where Barnes had abandoned it on the coffee table, and you kept it tucked under your arm as you made your way back into the world. 

The cold hit you suddenly, much worse than inside, and you winced as the wind stung your face. The storm was dying down, but the snow was still falling in thick enough clouds to make it hard to see at first, and you brought a hand up instinctively to shield your face. The wall of white flashed through your mind, but you shook the image off, stalking through the thick layer of snow and towards the generator, around the other side of the safehouse - one corner away from where Barnes was messing with firewood. When you were done, you wouldn’t need any stupid firewood at all. 

You were panting by the time you reached the generator, and you leaned a heavy hand against it, trying to catch your breath. So far, so good. Your head was a bit cottony, but you cleared that away with a few firm shakes, hauling the maintenance kit on top of the generator’s gray box with a resolute clang. You unscrewed the side panel with some difficulty, your fingers going numb in the cold, but once it was open you could reach inside and shield them from the wind. Everything was going fine. 

The wind battered against your side, and you spread your stance, trying to keep from slumping over. You were so, so tired from walking through the snow, and your head was starting to get foggy again. Determined, you pressed on, fiddling with the generator’s wiring. If you could just find the problem - maybe a faulty cable to replace, or a wire to be reattached - you could warm up the safehouse. You could be warm again, and god that sounded incredible, especially with the cold seeping into your bones all over again. 

Your teeth were chattering as you kept up your ministrations, your fingers slipping on the wires even as you kept them from the wind’s bitter reach. If you just - 

But the white spots dancing across your vision stopped you, and for a moment you thought they might be snowflakes. But no, they were growing, flitting across your eyesight as you squinted as if to see through them, to get back to the task at hand. 

You frowned when you felt your knees go colder than before, and looked down to find them sinking into the snow. You could’ve sworn you were on your feet a second ago . . . 

It seemed like things twisted out of your control after that realization, as two large, strong hands appeared beneath your arms, pulling you up out of the snow and back towards the safehouse door, abandoning the maintenance kit and the open generator box as they tugged you through the doorway and back into the mild chill of the safehouse. 

“. . . What?” You twisted in their grasp and found yourself pitching forward, nearly falling face-first onto the wooden floor, before an arm caught you around the middle and pulled you back up to your feet. You swayed, even with their support. 

“You wanna tell me what you were thinking?” Barnes’ voice came from somewhere above your head, and you scowled, even through the wave of nausea washing over you. 

“Was thinking I’d . . . be fucking  _ useful _ . . .” you muttered through your returning headache, trying to pull yourself from his clutches. Barnes let you go, but you could feel his hands hovering just behind your back as you stumbled to the couch, waiting to catch you if you fell. 

“Could you just stay still for five minutes?” He asked it through gritted teeth, and it took everything in you not to snap at him that you couldn’t move thanks to the shakiness in your body, and the way your skull was trying to split itself in half. All you did was give a single, stiff nod. 

“I’m almost certain you have a concussion,” Barnes said as you eased back onto the couch, and you scowled. 

“Good thing you mentioned that then,” you muttered, eyes slipping closed against the lights beaming down on you from the ceiling. “I could’ve done something to make it worse.”

You heard Barnes mutter something to himself, and then your boots were being yanked off your feet. You pulled your legs up and away from his reach, eyes flying open, and found Barnes crouching down in front of you, his gaze darting up to meet yours as his grip on your boot faltered. “What’re you doing?”

“Gotta warm you up again,” he said, voice stern and frustrated. “I swear it’s as if you  _ want  _ hypothermia.”

“I’m not gonna get hypothermia from being outside for, like, ten minutes,” you snapped, but shucked off your boots and jacket anyway, refusing to look back at Barnes as he stood and hovered over you. “There, undressed. Unless you want me in my panties again that badly -”

“Just - god, just stay here for five minutes and try not to hurt yourself, okay? I’ll be back.” 

You leaned back against the couch cushions, eyes closing again against the pounding headache that you doubted would be solved by tylenol this time; it was frustrating to think that Barnes had been right about the possible concussion. You could hear him clanging around somewhere, opening cupboards, and you frowned; it was as if you could hear his smugness from across the safehouse. He was right, you were wrong, and now he had every opportunity to treat you like an invalid. 

You were just beginning to doze when you felt his broad hand on your shoulder, pulling you from sleep with a soft nudge. Your eyes cracked open, blearily staring up at him. He was shrouded in dimness; as you glanced around, you could see he had drawn the curtains on the windows, blocking out the harsh sunlight glancing off the snow outside, leaving the safehouse lit only by the crackling fireplace. It seemed he had managed to haul in at least some more firewood. 

“Here,” Barnes said, holding out a mug; you accepted it carefully, fingers curling around the hot ceramic, avoiding the worst of the heat. Steam curled off the surface of the drink, and you let out a quiet, grateful sigh. 

“We’ve had tea in here this whole time?” You asked, taking a careful sip. It was still too hot to tell the flavour, but you savoured the warmth as it eased down your raw throat and pooled in your stomach, spreading through your stiff, cold limbs like growing light. 

“Found a few old packets,” Barnes said with a shrug as he rifled through the med kit next to you, the scene eerily similar to the one you had woken to just that morning. “It’s pretty much just green, but I think the label on that one said pomegranate.” 

“You think?” You asked, cocking one questioning eyebrow. 

“The writing was in Turkish,” Barnes said, laying out some first aid supplies just as he had done earlier, running through his little inventory under his breath. 

“You don’t speak Turkish, Sergeant?” You were too tired to inject much venom into the question, real curiosity overtaking any snideness as you tilted your head back to rest against the top of the couch. 

“Not very well,” Barnes said, giving your cheek a light tap, urging your eyes open. “Try not to move your head too much, I wanna check and make sure you haven’t gotten too fucked up.” 

You complied, though not without a weak glare in his direction. Barnes was too busy counting out tylenol tablets in his palm, screwing the lid back on the container and then handing the tablets to you, dropping them carefully into your waiting, open palm. 

“Maybe try a cold compress on the back of your neck until the headache stops,” he added, nodding to the compress he had taken from the med kit, “though I’d wait until you warm back up to use anything cold.”

“Cold things might make me cold? Good call, doc, I never would’ve guessed,” you said, swallowing the tablets with a carefully-cooled gulp of tea. _ Yeah, definitely pomegranate _ . Barnes just sighed and packed up the med kit, leaving it on the coffee table a few feet away - evidently assuming you’d have need for it again soon. Just how messed up did he think you were going to get on this mission? 

“Why are you so difficult?” Barnes asked, levelling you with a long, irritated stare. 

You just glared back at him, trying to ignore that the warmth from the tea was because he had made it for you. “Maybe because you won’t stop being so patronizing? Oh, Y/L/N, you grown adult who has actively helped save the world before, how could you possibly know how to - to - to type coordinates into a GPS? Oh, Y/L/N, you trained SHIELD agent, how could you possibly know how to not get hypothermia, or take care of yourself when you’re sick? Hmm?” 

Barnes was watching you with narrowed eyes, his face lined with his usual intense irritation. You huffed at his silence, returning your attention to your tea. Maybe if you ignored his gaze for long enough, he’d get up and leave you alone. 

Instead he broke the quiet and bit out, “I’m not patronizing you.” 

You refused to look back up at him, snapping into your mug. “Bullshit, you do it constantly. It’s like you think I’ve never been  _ outside  _ before, like I’ve never so much as fired a weapon, nevermind gone on actual missions -”

“It’s not patronizing to want you to be  _ safe _ ,” Barnes interrupted you, his voice laden with confusion and annoyance, “and I wouldn’t have to worry about that all the time if you weren’t so damn reckless!”

Your eyes snapped up to meet his, and you set the mug down on the coffee table with a hard thud to give him your full attention. He was in for it now. “Reckless? I am not  _ reckless _ , I take necessary and calculated risks -”

“So jumping into an avalanche was calculated?”

“Would you stop interrupting me!” Your face was beginning to warm from the anger bubbling up inside you, ready to burst from your seams. “I did not  _ jump into an avalanche _ , and you fucking know it. I saved your life -”

“I didn’t ask you to do that -”

“Was I supposed to let him shoot you -”

“You’re not supposed to die  _ for  _ me! Nobody is supposed to get hurt on my behalf, Y/N! That’s not what -” Barnes stopped, face a bit flushed, blue eyes bright with agitation as he stared you down. You looked right back, your heart hammering away in your chest. 

“What?” You asked; you didn’t notice yourself inching forwards, leaning into Barnes’ space until you were hardly a foot apart. “Your teammates aren’t supposed to have your back?”

“My teammates aren’t supposed to act like they’re disposable,” he muttered, as if all his pent up frustration had drained out of him in one fell swoop. His eyes had dulled, though his gaze was still locked with yours. “And they’re definitely not supposed to get hurt instead of me. Do you get that? That I’m meant to be the one who takes the brunt of it? I’m the one who has things to fucking make up for?” 

“By dying?” You snorted, though there was little humour in the sound. You stared Barnes down, unflinching, and you swore you could’ve tipped forward and tumbled right into his eyes, that was how endless the blue seemed in that moment. “That’s bullshit. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself to make up for anything.” 

“What, you haven’t read the files?” His words were colder than the storm outside. 

“Don’t need to,” you said with a small shrug. “Nothing in those files I can’t know from running missions with you. I highly doubt the Winter Soldier was dragging people out of avalanches.” 

You were close enough that you could almost imagine your breaths mingling. Somewhere in the back of your skull, another headache was beginning to form, but you brushed the thought aside; you were too focused on Barnes, on the steadiness in his gaze, and the absolute stillness of his whole body, as if tensing to run. You curled your fingers into the fabric of the couch, standing your ground under his intent stare. 

“I guess not,” Barnes conceded, his tone hushed in the cold quiet of the safehouse. “But they’re the same hands.” 

“They’ll be clean eventually.” You narrowed your eyes. “But not because of self-sacrificial stupidity.” 

“I could say the same thing to you,” Barnes countered. “You pulled the exact same shit.” 

“You would’ve done the same.” 

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah. Besides,” you added dryly, “it gave you the chance to treat me like an incompetent child, and I know how much you enjoy that.” 

“I just don’t want you getting hurt -”

“And that means scolding me every time I take a risk on a mission?” 

Barnes sighed, and you could feel the warmth of his exhale on your cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you think that you had to go proving yourself, especially not like that.” He was leaning forwards, too, so close you could make out the faint scar under his right eye, a soft gash of colour against the pale of his cheekbone. You wondered what he was seeing on you, miniscule details only revealed with proximity. You wondered if they made him feel the way that scar was making you feel, something strange and shifting in your stomach, a displacement of old feelings. 

“Think I’m always gonna have to prove myself, Sergeant,” you said quietly. 

“Not like that,” Barnes said again, shaking his head. It was the kind of movement you liked to see on him: easy, not practiced, no forethought or hesitation, pure instinct. It was just him, no military training or fear overtaking his body language. “You shouldn’t have to hurt yourself to prove your value.” 

“Are you saying I’m invaluable, Barnes?” You asked, mouth curling in a half-smile. 

The gentlest flush made his scar vanish for a moment. “I’m saying you shouldn’t throw your life around like you’re disposable, because the team needs you.” He paused, gaze raking over your whole form, and you felt heat come rushing up through your limbs. Forget the generator, it seemed Barnes’ stare could warm you up all on its own. “Even if you don’t know how to follow orders.” 

“You have any orders for me right now?” You murmured, and Barnes just breathed a laugh that brushed against your skin, trailing its way along your collarbone. 

“No. A request, maybe.”

You quirked an eyebrow, trying to regain your senses in such close proximity to him. Barnes smelled clean, like the snow outside, and you took a long breath, steadying yourself. “And what request is that?”

“Try not to die,” he said.

You laughed, hand moving to brace against his thigh. You hadn’t even realized you were moving until suddenly it was there, the infinitesimal space between you two vanquished, the quiet tension shattered by your stupid hand. 

Something about the movement must have struck something loose in the back of his head, because that was when Bucky pulled away, glancing over you quickly. 

“You did scare the shit out of me when I brought you here,” he said, a frown threatening to tug at his lips. “Thought you might not make it until I got the fire going and you woke up properly.”

“Scared of telling Rogers I took an avalanche to the face for you?” You asked, feeling a bit light-headed. “Because he would’ve been pissed.” 

“Scared I was gonna watch you die,” Bucky said, and your brow knit in frustration as you watched the frown win this battle, twisting his mouth in distress. 

“Well, I’m not dead,” you said, still a bit dazed. You really needed to get ahold of yourself around him; one heart-to-heart, and suddenly you were willing to tip forward right into the deep blue of his eyes. “And Steve is only gonna be pissed if we tell him the surveillance pod is still missing.” 

You leaned back, ignoring the building headache behind your eyes, and pressed a hand over your eyes, blocking out the remaining light in the safehouse. Bucky carefully helped lower you back onto the couch, letting you rest your head against a pillow you had bunched up against the end, his body bracketing yours into the cushions in a stance you thought felt protective. He really wasn’t making your self-control any easier; with every movement of his hands against the small of your back, you wanted to curl up into him, let him draw you into his chest the way he had when he carried you here after the fight. Maybe it would be a better experience if you were conscious. You bit the inside of your cheek, willing yourself to keep it together. He was just trying to be a better field partner, nothing more. He was still Bucky Barnes, still a condescending ass, and you weren’t going to suddenly get moony-eyed over him because he decided to be nice to you when you had suffered brain damage. 

“You should sleep,” he said, standing to let you lay out more comfortably on the couch. “I’m gonna haul in the rest of the firewood.” 

Your eyes slipped shut as he walked away, feeling his hand leave its comforting spot on the crown of your head as he passed you on his way out the door. You let sleep claim you, hoping things would all return to normal in the morning. You were getting out of here, and away from whatever strange something had begun brewing between you and Bucky Barnes. 

* * *

The world outside the safehouse had become bright and cheery overnight, as if the deadly storm had never happened. 

You felt a pang of bitterness as you stared around at the mountainside, decked out in glowing white snow banks, twinkling innocently at you in the late morning sunlight. Even with the handful of concussion symptoms fading into the background of your memory, it still felt ridiculous to be presented with such a non-threatening sight upon finally braving the world outside the safehouse. 

Beside you, Bucky was studying the snow banks as if enemy operatives might burst from them at any moment. You sighed, hefting the maintenance kit higher in your embrace, readying yourself for the journey ahead. 

Find the surveillance pod, get it back online, then  send out a signal for extraction. Easy enough - although it did nearly kill you both the first time. Maybe some humility was in order for this next phase of the mission. 

“Okay, without the GPS this is gonna be a pain in the ass,” Bucky said, turning to face you. He squinted through the sunlight, locking eyes with you in a way that felt new, and terrifying. You tamped down the sudden feeling. “So we should just stick together and hopefully we’ll be fine. The walk shouldn’t be too bad without the wind and everything.”

“Right, yeah, no problem,” you agreed, nodding in the affirmative. The tension crackling between the two of you was a palpable thing, and you wished you could knock it into the snow, to be left here and forgotten once the mission was over. But it felt more like a tether, sitting neatly between you and Bucky, connecting you as you trudged through the cold. 

Things had been near-silent when the two of you woke, still huddled together on the couch. Bucky’s body was a wall shielding you from the early morning chill in the room, and you hadn’t moved an inch when you woke up to find your hands curled in the fabric of his shirt, the smooth skin of his hip brushing against your clothed thigh as the two of you slowly returned to the land of the living and took stock of the situation. Breaking apart was uncomfortable, and you had retreated slowly into the kitchenette to make more pomegranate tea, avoiding Bucky’s eyes as you did so. You felt his gaze anyway, a touch on the back of your neck as you watched the water boil in the pot, the flames of the gas stove flickering away. 

Now, reaching the three mile mark that Bucky was certain the two of you had come from during the storm, things were only more awkward. It was difficult to jump right back to jabs and taunts when you could so clearly remember the look in his eyes when he said  _ they’re the same hands _ , the shadow of his warm body still pressed against yours. He was equally as quiet, though he wouldn’t stop staring at you as you moved through the snowy mountainside, expression unreadable. 

“You know what?” Bucky’s voice snapped you out of your clouded thoughts, and your head flicked to face him. His eyes were already on you, naturally. “I think maybe a storm could’ve blown the pod out of its proper spot.” 

“You mean the weather was fucking us over before we even got here?” You asked with a snort. “Great. Definitely doesn’t feel like a doomed mission now.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t rise to the bait of your complaint. You were hoping he might take it in stride, fall back into step with you in the familiar pattern of your bickering. But if he wanted to keep things weird and silent, who were you to stop him? 

“We could head back to the original coordinates and try and search around the area - something might turn up that way.” You nodded your agreement to Bucky’s plan, tromping through the snow after him as he continued on his way to the spot you had begun this disaster of a mission. It had been hardly 48 hours since you two were deposited on the mountain, but somehow you felt a lifetime had passed. Or maybe just half of one; there still seemed to be something else brewing in the near future that you weren’t sure if you wanted to get through. Finding out Bucky Barnes wasn’t always a complete ass seemed like enough of a turn for this mission to take. 

You were the one who found the surveillance pod, which would have been great if you hadn’t found it by tripping directly over it. Hidden in the depths of the snow, it sent you sprawling on your face in yet another bank of icy cold, and you grumbled furiously as you pushed yourself back onto your feet; just how many face-plants into the snow were you going to take? 

“Think I found it,” you called, giving the edge of the pod a nudge with your boot; a clang echoed through it. 

Bucky jogged over, and you envied how easily he navigated the thick snow. He sighed when he reached you, gaze darting over your snow-dusted form, and you scowled. 

“Not a word, Barnes,” you said, arms folding defensively across your chest. 

“Wasn’t gonna say anything,” Bucky said, though you could see the small makings of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. If the alternative to your bickering was this - this quiet, amused, almost  _ friendly  _ snark - you kind of wished you could return to the bickering. At least that was familiar, was something you knew how to navigate. This was uncharted territory, and you didn’t know what to do with Bucky looking at you like your back and forth was a shared secret and not a neon sign displaying your mutual dislike. 

Bucky got the pod righted from where it had been tipped onto its side, and it towered just over your head. You finagled the hatch open so you could work at the satellite dish and other equipment kept safe inside, which would transmit all the surveillance info it picked up right back to the New York headquarters. Bucky stood to the side and held your gloves and tool kit, peering over your shoulder while you worked. At least this required silence. 

The lights of the satellite flickered on, bright, pulsing green, and you grinned. “Yes! We are back online!” 

Bucky nudged your shoulder, and you turned to see him smiling, too. “Thank god we can send a signal now. Fuck the generator.” 

You nodded, giving the side of the pod an affectionate smack before pulling your hand back with a grimace - frigid metal on your bare palm  _ stung _ . 

“Here,” Bucky said, holding out your gloves, eyes shining. They were so blue against the blinding white backdrop of the mountains. “Still in the Alps, princess.” 

“Fuck you,” you said, rolling your eyes as you tugged on the gloves. They were still warm from where they had been clutched in Bucky’s hand. 

“Guess we can finally send out that rescue signal,” Bucky said, nodding at the surveillance pod. You gave a small, distracted hum of agreement, focused on pulling on the gloves. It seemed like something you’d much rather focus on than the look Bucky was giving you - like he wanted to look right down into you, read all your thoughts and feelings. You wanted to hate him for that blatant curiosity, but couldn’t find it in yourself to do so. You wanted to read your own thoughts, too; maybe he would be able to make sense of whatever was swirling around inside your head, as cluttered a mess as the gently falling snow around you. 

Bucky leaned over to tap away at the screen inside the pod, sending out the signal to the team for extraction. They had to be a bit panicked by now, with no word from you for nearly two whole days. You hoped they would come quickly, if only to give you an easier time putting distance between you and Bucky. 

“They’ll probably respond soon,” Bucky said when he finished with the signal, glancing over at you. “So we should get everything together, make sure we’re ready for extraction.”

“Yep,” you agreed. Your breaths puffed in the frigid air, mingling together as you stood there, waiting for the message of confirmation from your team. You bit your lower lip, uncertainty holding you in place. 

“I realized,” Bucky said, and your gaze locked tightly with his, “that I haven’t actually thanked you yet. For, you know -”

“Getting struck by an avalanche for you?” You offered, eyebrows raised in mock innocence. 

Bucky gave you an exasperated look, though you could see something warmer bubbling under the surface of it - something fonder, unless you were losing your mind. Maybe you were, and the cold and the possible concussion were finally getting to you, making you imagine things. 

“Yeah, that. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“Right.” Bucky nodded, long and slow, his eyes never leaving yours. The constant contact was starting to get unnerving, but his gaze was so captivating that you couldn’t seem to break it. 

“Like I said,” you replied with a shrug, forcing your voice to stay breezy, “you would’ve done the same. I know I’m not the  _ ideal  _ teammate, but I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

“Yeah.” Bucky nodded again; it was as if he couldn’t think to do anything else. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, and you followed the movement, enraptured. It was the first time you had looked away from his eyes, and you felt a flicker of recognition stir in your chest as you noticed how many minutes the two of you had just been standing there for. 

“Don’t do it again,” he added, releasing his lip, dipping his head to coax your eyes back to his.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you said, no bite to the words whatsoever. He just huffed out a laugh, and you longed to feel it, the contrast it would have against the cold. But you’d need to be even closer for that. 

You weren’t sure who touched who first. It happened so gradually that it seemed to creep up on you, and suddenly your palms were flat against Barnes’ shoulders and he was hardly an inch from your face. You couldn’t tell if the roaring pulse in your ears belonged to you or him. When you felt his mouth ghost across your cheek, you shivered. It was as warm as you’d hoped. 

“You’re ridiculous,” he whispered. “And you scare the shit out of me, you know that?”

“Gotta keep you on your toes, don’t I?” You whispered back, and then Barnes’ mouth was on yours, swallowing up your breathy laughter like it was oxygen. 

He was impossibly gentle, and the way his fingers cradled your jaw and the back of your head reminded you of your presumed concussion; up until then, you had been too preoccupied with the feeling to notice, wrapped up in the easy haze of kissing Bucky Barnes. You pressed up into his embrace, arms coming around his neck and holding on for dear life. You felt him frown slightly against your mouth, and you kissed him harder; you didn’t want him to be sad when you were kissing him - especially when it felt that  _ good _ . You ran a gloved hand along the nape of his neck, scratching carefully at the base of his scalp; despite the downturn of his lips, you could see the way he melted into the touch, his eyes softening just the slightest when he pulled away. 

Beside you, the surveillance pod beeped with an incoming message of confirmation. From your team. The team. The mission. 

It snapped the two of you out of whatever spell you were in with such force that you stumbled back from each other, like magnets bursting apart. You ran a hand over your mouth, the fuzzy fabric of your glove tickling the places where Bucky had just  _ kissed  _ you. 

He was staring back at you with wide, unreadable eyes, and you swallowed as you lowered your hand, revealing the frown that was etching itself into your face. What the everliving fuck was going on? 

“We should probably -” he began, making an aborted motion to the pod, and you nodded quickly. 

“Yeah, definitely, they’ll be here soon, and -”

“I can -”

“Right, yeah.” 

Bucky accepted the confirmation, and you took a long, deep breath, calming yourself. The feelings rumbling inside of you were too confusing to parse, but you shoved them down as hard as you could. 

“Well,” you said, your voice coming out blessedly even and cold, “Guess we’ll just wait to head back.” 

“Yep,” Bucky agreed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. You scowled at that, but quickly shoved your annoyance aside. No reason to be ticked off if he wanted to scour you from his skin. You would do the same to his lingering touch with a hot shower the moment you were back in New York. “Back on track.” 

Because that was all this had been: a mission gone off the rails, and the two of you making stupid decisions to cope with the sudden chaos. You gave him one curt nod before turning your gaze back to the sky above, already searching for the quinjet that would carry you back to normalcy. 

And normalcy involved despising Bucky Barnes. 


	2. since there's no place to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> returning back to base, you figured maybe everything would sort itself out, and you and bucky could go back to normal.
> 
> apparently not.

Thinking about your feelings, you had decided a week ago, was for idiots. Feelings could be dealt with much more efficiently through punching. You swung with that conviction in mind when you knocked the punching bag off its hook, sending it tumbling along the training room floor. 

You finally paused in your efforts, hands braced on your thighs as you caught your breath. You’d been viciously attacking the thing for half an hour, and this was the second time you’d sent it to the ground. Steve might be genuinely impressed if he could see you. Which, of course, he couldn’t; showing him any signs of how badly that mission had gone was to be avoided at all costs. You didn’t know what he might do if he knew the truth of what had happened between you and Bucky in the Alps. 

“And what war crimes is that punching bag guilty of that I didn’t know about?” 

You spun around, locking eyes with Nat as she leaned against the training room wall. She watched you with raised eyebrows, expectant; Natasha Romanoff got explanations when she asked for them. You sighed, running a palm over your face, wiping away the collected sweat on your forehead. 

“Some pretty bad ones,” you joked, hoping to lighten the mood. “You don’t wanna know.”

“Hmm . . . maybe not, but I do want to know what’s going on with you.”

“Nothing,” you lied, stooping to hoist the punching bag back up. If you didn’t want Steve to find out, you certainly didn’t want Nat to know what had happened between you and Bucky - she wouldn’t blab, but she would absolutely take matters into her own hands, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to know what Nat thought your next step should be. 

The next step you had planned for yourself was to never speak to Bucky Barnes again, which had proven doable for the past week. You’d avoided him in the kitchen and common room well enough, slipping out as he stepped in, retreating to your rooms or the roof or the training room. You hadn’t had a training session together since the mission, which was a relief, and you were certain that after you’d debriefed Steve on the avalanche fiasco, he would be benching you from any missions with Bucky for a while. You’d hardly seen hide nor hair of him since the quinjet touched down outside the compound, depositing you two back into your normal lives, and that suited you just fine. You could go back to normal with some space between you. 

You had dreamed about the kiss twice already, but you were chalking that up to brain damage. In fact, you were chalking the kiss itself up to brain damage, too, no matter how mild Helen claimed your concussion symptoms would have been by that point. (Apparently Bucky was a better nurse than you had expected. There simply wasn’t anything he was bad at, besides human interaction, it seemed.) 

“You know I’m the last person in this place you wanna try lying to,” Nat said, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in suspicion. She’d been training with you regularly all week, letting you take out your frustrations on punching bags and through sparring matches. But you kept your mouth shut, avoiding her gaze as you replaced the bag where it belonged and made your way to the door. 

As you passed her, Nat reached out and clasped the crook of your elbow, tugging you towards her. It wasn’t rough, but it was firm and did not leave room for argument or escape. You followed her into the training room washroom, and she locked the door behind her. 

“There,” she said, turning to face you with her hands on her hips, eyebrow cocked in question, “now spill.” 

“There’s nothing to spill, Nat,” you said, trying to sound as confident as you could. “Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Well,  _ something  _ is making you blow up on punching bags like they’ve murdered your dog,” Nat replied coolly, not budging. “ _ And  _ making you avoid Barnes like the plague.”

“I’m avoiding him because I don’t like him, remember?” You weren’t sure if the question you ended that thought on was for Nat or yourself. 

“Right.” Nat eyed you for a long moment, and you tried to hold your ground, standing as still as possible; dealing with Nat sometimes felt like dealing with an overly-friendly viper, where ceasing all movement might make her bored with you enough for you to escape her clutches. 

She huffed out a sigh and unlocked the door, nodding for you to leave first. “Whatever this is, you can’t avoid it forever.”

“No, but I can die trying,” you said with a half-grin, shoving down the growing tension in your gut. 

Barnes wouldn’t be pleased with a threat like that, and you weren’t sure if you appreciated his stubbornness about your safety or not. 

_ Definitely not, _ you decided as you disappeared back to your room where you knew he wouldn’t find you. The last thing you needed was someone always looking over your shoulder to “keep you safe”, especially a condescending asshole like Bucky Barnes.

* * *

The morning dawned bright and early, and noted condescending asshole Bucky Barnes pressed his face further into his pillow. Maybe if he just went back to sleep, he wouldn’t have to confront what was waiting for him around seemingly every corner of the compound. 

Y/N. 

She was inescapable. Though she tip-toed around him more than she used to, ducking out of rooms when their eyes met and avoiding him during training sessions, Bucky still saw her everywhere. In the kitchen, fixing herself coffee, or sprawled on the roof talking to Sam. Bucky wished he could ask FRIDAY to alert him to her location, but he was worried that request would get back to Steve somehow, and he really couldn’t have that. Steve was already concerned enough about what had happened on the last mission. 

_ “And you’re sure everything’s fine between the two of you?” Steve was frowning, and Bucky knew none of their bullshit had worked on him. Steve was worse than Natasha - rather than seeing through nonsense because of superspy skills, he just saw through Bucky because he knew him. Bucky hadn’t been able to lie to Steve properly in a very long time, and in his recovery in New York he was only getting worse at hiding things. So much for the air of mystery that had kept a lot of teammates at bay for his first few months living in the Avengers compound.  _

_ “Yes,” he lied anyway, hoping Steve would go ahead to his meeting and forget about Y/N’s report, the gaps in their story. The pair of them had left out any incriminating details; not just the - Christ, the  _ kiss _ \- but the moments that had led them there, conversations in the safehouse, sleeping on the same lumpy couch. They hadn’t even agreed upon a cover story beforehand. At least they both wanted to put that behind them and pretend it had never happened.  _

_ “You can tell me the truth,” Steve said, as if that could change anything. He gave Bucky’s shoulder a familiar clap, and Bucky managed a tight nod and small, reluctant smile.  _

_ “I know I can. Everything’s fine.”  _

_ Steve sighed, pulling back and starting off down the hall to the meeting. Thank God. “Alright. But if anything changes . . .” _

_ “You’ll be the first to know,” Bucky said, slinking back into his rooms once Steve had vanished around the corner.  _

Bucky sat up in bed, running a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes to peer at his clock. Nearly nine in the morning. He’d slept in late. At least by this point, you would have gone off on your run with Nat, leaving the kitchen free for Bucky to make breakfast in peace. He clambered out of bed, pulling on sweatpants and socks to shield himself from the chill of the compound. Tony heated the place pretty decently, but Bucky still flinched from the kind of cold that clung to hardwood floors and stainless steel. 

He’d balked at the mission upon first scanning the briefing packet, although he knew he had to go. Out in the middle of the mountains, during the winter? That kind of cold still held too many bad memories for him, tossed him back into his past without the slightest warning. But then Steve was looking at him over the conference table, and Y/N was raising one challenging eyebrow, and he knew he had to say yes. If she went alone, something bad would happen. 

She had always been too reckless. Steve had gotten on his case about their bickering, and Bucky would admit that sometimes they took it too far; there were days where it was less of a back-and-forth and more of an all-out brawl, as if seeing the other person gave them the chance to take out all their frustrations on someone, to hell with the consequences. She trained like she was trying to one-up him, and she made stupid choices on missions that put her in more danger than necessary. Just a week ago she dove headfirst into an avalanche. ( _ For you  _ said the stupid part of Bucky’s brain, and he batted the thought aside.) She was one of the only people on their team who didn’t see right through his facade, and took his brooding silence at face value. She was insecure, childish, reckless and infuriating. And because nobody else on the team seemed to want to do it, Bucky had had to take it upon himself to make sure she didn’t get herself killed. 

So he pushed too much sometimes; so what? At least she was alive. She could stand to be a bit more grateful for that. But her voice kept creeping up on him when he thought about her for too long: small, wavering, spiteful, spoken from the depths of her blanket nest on that couch. Brow furrowed in frustration as she practically pleaded with him to stop treating her like an  _ incompetent child _ . Bucky sighed, trying to push the thought down as he made his way down to the kitchen, the halls blissfully empty as he went. He could mull over this bullshit situation later; right now, he needed coffee and maybe some of Sam’s leftovers. 

They entered the kitchen from opposite doors, and their eyes locked immediately. 

She was still in the shorts and t shirt she wore on her run, a windbreaker fluttering around her as she moved. Bucky wondered how she had gone out in clothes like that during the frigid morning hours of January, and envied her for just a moment. One avalanche out of the way, and she was back on her feet, running headlong into the cold. She was nothing if not persistent. 

Y/N wavered, wobbling on the balls of her feet, as she stared back at him. There was easily ten feet of space between the two of them, but it still felt too close. Maybe it was how alone they were; this was the closest they had gotten to the circumstances of that safehouse since returning to New York. Bucky could have closed the gap in only a handful of steps, put his hand right where it was on her jaw just days ago . . . 

“I was gonna make coffee,” Y/N said, pulling him from the memory. There was a phantom sensation along Bucky’s palm, the heat of her skin, and he shook his hand out, trying to be rid of it. “So . . . do you . . . ?”

“I want coffee,” he said, nodding, and cleared his throat, which was still a bit heavy with sleep. “Yeah, that - I could -”

“Okay -”

She slid backwards against the island to give him ample room to approach the coffeemaker, where he began measuring out coffee grounds with his back turned to her. Bucky wanted to keep her in his line of sight, but watching her while he worked would be too weird, wouldn’t it? They needed to go back to normal, and this was far from normal. 

“So,” he started, the words tripping awkwardly as they left him, “you went running in that? In January?” God, could he focus on anything that  _ wasn’t  _ her bare thighs, and how cold she must be? 

“Didn’t get far,” Y/N replied vaguely. He could hear the slight frown in her voice as he refilled the water in the coffeemaker, and set it to brew. Bucky still hadn’t turned around, keeping his hands braced on the edge of the counter; he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face her like this, his brain still slightly addled with sleep. That was definitely why he couldn’t get the sight of her bare legs out of his fucking  _ head  _ -

“You making coffee?” Nat’s voice pierced through whatever strange haze had descended over Bucky, and he shifted to meet her eyes as she strode into the kitchen. Her eyebrows flicked upwards as she surveyed the scene, gaze moving to where Y/N stood just a few feet behind Bucky. He still couldn’t see her expression, and that was somehow less of a comfort now; he wanted to know what she was thinking, how she felt about being interrupted. Was her heart hammering away like his was? 

Doubtful, given the cool stare she had been meeting his with for the past week, but he could dream. Or, think; not  _ dream _ , or  _ daydream _ , or  _ imagine _ . . . god, he needed this coffee. 

“Yeah, just put the pot on,” Bucky confirmed with a nod in Nat’s direction. 

“I’m gonna -” Bucky turned sharply, watching as Y/N pushed herself off the opposite counter and tugged the sides of her windbreaker a little tighter around herself. Her socks slid slightly on the hardwood flooring as she darted from the kitchen, a hasty, “See you later,” tossed over her shoulder for Nat before she vanished down the hall. 

Bucky stood, frozen still, as Nat’s narrowed gaze swung around to meet his. He swallowed, watching her approach with the steady, certain movements of a lioness stalking her prey. What was it with all the women in this compound, scaring the shit out of him this early in the day? 

“Barnes,” Nat said, boxing him in against the counter, his thighs bumping into the granite. “Neither of us are leaving this kitchen without an explanation for  _ that _ .” She hooked a thumb in the direction of Y/N’s flight. 

Bucky tipped his head back and let out a long, exhausted sigh that he hoped would at least make Nat pity him. Maybe then she wouldn’t press him for too many details. But when he looked back down, she was staring resolutely up at him, arms crossed and eyebrow cocked in silent question. 

“Damn it,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face, trying to compose himself. “Nothing happened, okay? We’re just having difficulties, as per usual.” He eyed the hallway, almost wishing Y/N would come scurrying back into the kitchen to relieve him of this one-on-one. No such luck. “We did the solo mission, it didn’t fix our problems, and now we’re back where we started. Okay?” 

“No,” Nat said flatly. “It’s not okay. But,” she continued, slouching slightly, her voice dropping into a low sigh. “Neither of you are budging on this, either.”

“Neither of us?” Bucky echoed. “Did you interrogate Y/N, too?”

“I’m not  _ interrogating  _ anybody,” Nat said sharply. “I’m just the only person around here who’s willing to deal with whatever bullshit the two of you have gotten yourselves into.”

“At least we aren’t fighting anymore,” Bucky snapped, turning to pull out a mug; the coffee was nearly finished brewing by that point. “Isn’t that good enough for you people?”

“Fighting would be better than whatever  _ this  _ is,” Nat said. “You two keep acting like somebody died every time you’re in a room with each other. At least the arguing wasn’t so -  _ weird _ .”

“God, I really can’t please you,” Bucky griped, reaching for the milk. “You all wanted us to go on a mission so we could stop fighting, and now that we’ve stopped fighting, you want us to go back to talking to each other.”

“We just want to know what’s going on, and before you say that  _ nothing is going on _ ,” Nat added, pointing her teaspoon at Bucky threateningly, “we all know something happened at that safehouse. What, did you guys get cabin fever and hook up?”

Bucky choked slightly on his coffee and coughed, hard, in Nat’s direction; she pursed her lips in a glare until he finished. “Jesus, no! Y/N almost died of hypothermia, and then we left, that’s all that happened!”

“Uh huh.” Nat stepped smoothly around the kitchen island, her eyes on Bucky, and took a delicate sip of her coffee. “Well, when you decide to stop lying to either us or yourself, let me know, yeah?”

“Will do,” Bucky snapped, slamming his mug on the countertop just hard enough to hear a tiny crack from the porcelain. “No problem.”

_ Like hell _ . 

* * *

“You’re infuriating.” 

Bucky’s voice was as cold as the snow seeping through your clothes, soaking you and chilling you to the bone. You stood rooted to the spot, your limbs locked in place as you stared back at him. You couldn’t seem to muster up a glare, your face frozen in a state of permanent bewilderment, looking up at him like a doe-eyed idiot. Anger boiled beneath the surface, though it couldn’t seem to warm you. 

“I did it for you, asshole!” Your words came out hoarse, shaky, and you watched Bucky’s face shift wildly between emotions, too quick for you to process what he was feeling - though you doubted he could, either. “I was protecting  _ you _ !”

His hands on your waist, arms encircling you, and there was the warmth that your rage couldn’t seem to provide; it bled through you from the places he touched, fighting against the unbearable cold of the snow and the wind and the ice all around you. 

“Y/N.” It was his voice, you knew, but you couldn’t figure out how he was saying it, since his mouth was slotting perfectly against yours, soft and pliable. He moved with you as you deepened the kiss, your arms struggling to unlock, to touch any part of him, drag him even closer, pull all his warmth into you until you couldn’t feel the chill of the storm anymore -

“Uh, Y/N?”

You jolted, chest tight, blinking into the sudden wash of light that woke you. You scrubbed at your face, hoping the slight pinkness in your eyes wasn’t too visible from where Nat stood, rifling through the haphazard pile of reports on your dresser. She glanced over at you, eyes narrowed.

“Do you have a copy of that report Steve needed, the follow up to the London incident?” 

You cleared your throat, trying to rid yourself of the last of your dream, and sat up in bed, the blankets shifting around your waist. “Yeah, it should be under the stamped copy of the Alps report.”  _ The Alps report _ . The cold, the storm, your feet stuck in the thick snow, Bucky’s hands on your waist.  _ Fuck _ .

“I’m gonna just - go to the bathroom -” you fumbled out an excuse for Nat before you disappeared from your room, ducking into the adjoining bathroom and closing the door. You didn’t lock it, knowing Nat would hear and probably get suspicious, but you sank down to the floor with your back against it, hoping to keep it closed and yourself locked away. 

You pressed your palms against your eyes, hoping to block out the light, focusing on slowing your breathing. There was a strange emptiness in your chest, a longing that might hurt if you touched it, a fresh wound with no scabbing to protect it. 

You were officially losing it, going on one shitty mission with Barnes and then having goddamn  _ dreams  _ about him because he  _ kissed  _ you? Like you were some moony-eyed teenager, swooning over the first cute boy to pay her any attention? Barnes would have a field day with this revelation, and the thought made your face warm in equal parts fury and embarrassment. 

And now Nat was snooping around the two of you, asking questions about the safe house and the storm and the hypothermia and the fucking  _ avalanche you jumped into for him  _ -

You slumped your head back against the door with a small thud, listening for her exiting footsteps. When you heard them, you stood, mostly calm. You splashed some cold water on your face, just for good measure, before you slipped back into your room to find some clothes. 

The perks of an evening nap: getting an empty gym to yourself once everyone else has gone to bed. 

* * *

Bucky slumped against the wall of the training room, head tipping back to rest against the concrete, and pulled in several long, deep breaths. His body buzzed with energy from the run he’d just done, sprinting laps around the place for nearly ten minutes straight. Steve kept reminding him that their stamina was increased, not infinite; Bucky wanted to prove that statement true before he had to start complying with it. 

He needed to burn off all the thoughts that had plagued him since Nat’s interrogation in the kitchen the other day - thoughts that mostly involved Y/N, and a crashing avalanche, and the feeling of her limp in his arms. 

Shit. Maybe he needed to do another few laps, to really drown them out. 

Bucky didn’t know what to do, now that distance clearly wasn’t working. He and Y/N could barely make eye contact with each other, and after a week of avoidance his thoughts only seemed to have swelled, becoming more and more overwhelming. Y/N seemed fine, if awkward; he doubted she was half as concerned with the memories of that mission as he was. She probably just wanted things to go right back to normal, like Bucky should want. 

But here he was, running over that night in the safehouse for the millionth time. She was so accusing, looking up at him like that, and the way she whispered about his past, about his  _ present _ , what he was -

God, all of it was too much. 

Bucky ducked into the bathroom, looking to rinse his sweat-beaded face with some cool water before doing a round with a punching bag, hopefully beating the thoughts out of his brain. He heard the door to the training room bang open, and wondered if Steve was coming down for another one-on-one. He and Nat still had so many questions. Hanging out with Sam seemed to be Bucky’s only escape, as all he did was give Bucky and Y/N curious side-eyed glances; Bucky needed someone who wasn’t interested in interfering too much. 

But when he stepped back out into the training room, already moving to wrap his hands in faded white cloth, he saw a familiar figure doing warm-up stretches on the other side of the room. He stood there, transfixed, as she bent at the waist, reaching her arms up above her head, twisting every which way in a pair of cotton shorts and a loose t shirt. He doubted a pair of pyjamas had ever looked so good, which shouldn’t have been surprising to him; he had seen how good she made a blanket nest and an oversized parka look, too. 

Y/N started jogging, her pace even and casual, her eyes having missed him up against the far wall. He never understood that: how well she let her guard down at the compound, all her instincts dulled by the familiar surroundings. She treated this place like a home in a way he still found difficult, and he envied her for it. Reckless in the field, and downright senseless at home; Y/N really shouldn’t have been cut out for the life of espionage and danger that she had plunged into so eagerly. He couldn’t imagine a world where she wouldn’t need someone to make sure she didn’t get herself killed, stubborn as she was. 

When she saw him, halfway through her second lap, she came to a screeching halt, feet stumbling a bit on the floor, eyes wide as they met Bucky’s. He felt his heart stutter for a second before he finished wrapping his other hand, a process that had taken far longer than it should have. Why was he just standing there, watching her jog, instead of getting on with his life like he was supposed to be doing?

_ Why fucking indeed _ , he thought to himself with no small twinge of embarrassment as he headed for the punching bags already hanging, shoulders hunched in his determination to shut her presence out. 

Bucky had gotten in three jabs before the bag was paused in its swing, a pair of hands clutching its sides, and a pair of narrowed eyes watching him from the other side. He tried to relax, but didn’t lower his hands. 

“What d’you want?” His voice came out low and gruff, and he was barely looking her in the eye. 

Y/N stepped around the bag, letting it bump her hip as she stood before him, arms crossed and face pinched with annoyance and something else, something swimming deep in her gaze, too close to her heart for Bucky to see. 

“I want to talk to you,” she said, although she didn’t sound happy about it. Good; Bucky wasn’t happy about it, either. 

“About?”

“The safehouse.” The word, finally spoken aloud from her lips, made him freeze up, his muscles clenching in instinctive defensiveness. 

“What about it?” Bucky turned to walk back to the washroom, hoping to avoid her once he escaped, but Y/N grabbed for his arm, missed, and Bucky went stock-still when he felt her hand slide into his own, clutching at his fingers. 

Y/N recoiled, but the damage was done: Bucky stood, waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to fucking  _ release him  _ from whatever this was. She hurried to stand in front of him, as if she was worried he might make another break for it; if only she knew how impossible that was for him like this, trapped in the confines of that feeling, of the soft grip of her palm around his hand. 

“ _ What happened  _ at the safehouse.” Y/N spoke through gritted teeth, clearly annoyed with the stoicism Bucky was hiding behind, but could she really blame him? The thought of all that happened, all they went through, was crashing down on him in a wave of anxiety. She was too close, all the time, too close to him; it felt like all Y/N had to do now was look up at him from across a room, and she could see right through him, all the way to his core. 

But God, he wanted to touch her. He wanted  _ her  _ to touch  _ him _ . 

“We can’t keep avoiding each other like this forever, alright? They’re all suspicious, and I can’t - they can’t  _ know _ .” 

“Why not?” Bucky stared down at her, challenging her; she always rose to one, he knew that now. “You embarrassed that you kissed me?”

“That  _ I  _ kissed  _ you _ ?” Y/N snorted, though it was strained. “Please don’t tell me that’s how you remember it happening, Barnes.” 

He wanted her to call him Bucky again. It sounded nice on her tongue. 

“That’s how it happened, isn’t it? You jumped into an avalanche to save  _ me _ , you kissed  _ me _ \- you worried they’ll find out and think you don’t actually hate me as much as you say you do?” 

“You are un-fucking-bearable -” 

“All primary agents please report to command immediately.” 

Y/N froze, her hand fisted tight in Bucky’s shirt, both of his reaching for her waist; Bucky’s hair fell around his face in a curtain as he stared her down, their faces hardly six inches apart. 

They burst apart as one, moving to the training room door; Y/N marched ahead of him, so Bucky couldn’t see her face, only the tight set of her shoulders as she hurried away from him. The lingering feel of her knuckles against his chest burned where she had ripped away from him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all i am so sorry this took so long!!! the final two chapters are being written rn, and they'll be up in a reasonable timeframe lmao. the final semester of uni kicked my ass for a bit, but i'm both on my reading week and back on my bullshit haha  
> anyway, hope you guys enjoy!!! stay safe and have a good february darlings 💗💗
> 
> hmu on tumblr @starmunches if you wanna talk, or @mallowswriting if you're interested in my other writing :))

**Author's Note:**

> okay!!!! having a really fun time with this fic, the other three chapters should be up within the next two or so weeks while i work on longer fics that i'm also excited about :)) hope y'all enjoy, and i hope i did enemies to lovers justice here, bc i would lay my life down for that trope. 
> 
> tysm for reading!! hmu on tumblr @starmunches or @mallowswriting if u wanna yell or chat or anything at all <3 <3 stay safe and have a good week starshines!!!!


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